Arrhenius, Svante August (1859–1927)

Svante Arrhenius was a Swedish physical chemist, winner of the 1903 Nobel Prize
in Chemistry, famous for his research on electrolytes.
He also did work on reaction rates and biochemistry, and was the first to
present a detailed scientific hypothesis of panspermia.
In this, he argued that life arrived on Earth in the form of microscopic spores that had been propelled across interstellar
space by the radiation pressure of star light. His seminal 1903 paper1 on the subject was in
response to "the failure of repeated attempts made by eminent biologists
to discover a single case of spontaneous generation of life".2 In its fully-developed form, Arrhenius's hypothesis reached a wide audience
through his book Worlds in the Making3 (1908, first published
as Varldarnas utveckling in Sweden in 1906).

Arrhenius was optimistic that, subject to the low temperatures in space,
spores would be able to remain viable for very long periods. As for the
effect of solar radiation, although Arrhenius was aware of the potentially
lethal effect of ultraviolet light on living cells, he insisted that "All
the botanists that I have been able to consult are of the opinion that we
can by no means assert with certainty that spores would be killed by the
light rays in wandering through infinite space." His support for panspermia
tied in with his fundamental belief that "all organisms in the universe
are related and the process of evolution is everywhere the same." He thought
life on other worlds might be common, though he opposed Lowell's
claims about martian canals. In The
Destinies of Stars4 (1918), he presented a Carboniferous
swamp version of Venus which remained popular
for many years (see Venus, life).